the book of unknown americans by cristina henríquez

But here, we're meant to assume that the characters are thinking and speaking in Latin American Spanish.

It's a style that's designed to be transparent, to let the reader engage directly with the characters. They are written in a plain idiomatic English, familiar from thousands of works of commercial fiction. After a while, these sections feel like texts designed to promote multicultural understanding in a middle school.įinally, and most problematically, none of these voices – including Alma's and Mayor's – sounds remotely Spanish. They have no political opinions, nor views that might be controversial. No one is bitter, depressed or angry no one has an unlovable thought. They are uniformly well-meaning, optimistic, nice.

But, despite their various histories, these people are all uncannily alike.

It's an intriguing idea, which had the potential to be powerful. It's clearly an attempt by Henríquez (pictured) to broaden the scope of her novel from a simple domestic drama to a social commentary on the lives of recent immigrants in general. In addition to alternating chapters in the voices of Alma and Mayor, there are chapters in which the other tenants of the building tell their life stories. Where the book fails is in its use of ever-changing points of view. Throughout, the book is lit by sharp observations like these, and warmed by Henríquez's obvious affection for her characters. At one point, Mayor watches Maribel waking up in a car, and notices 'an indentation along her cheek where she'd been resting it against the seat belt'. Maribel's impairment is subtly, convincingly suggested, as is Mayor's growing dependence on her. The strength of the book is in the quiet details that convey this family's tragedy: the first groceries bought at a gas station, the kitchen cabinets with bedsheets stapled over their fronts in place of doors, the panic of missing a stop on the bus when one doesn't share a language with the other passengers. The story of the poverty and isolation they find is told from two points of view: that of Maribel's mother, Alma, and of Mayor, a lonely neighbour boy who falls in love with Maribel. Her parents have left a comfortable life in Mexico, hoping that American special-needs education will restore their only child to her former self. In particular, the novel centres on Maribel Rivera, a teenage girl with a severe brain injury. T he unknown Americans of Cristina Henríquez's novel are Hispanic tenants of a run-down apartment building in a down-at-heel Delaware town.

The book of unknown americans by cristina henríquez